The Mary Rose Trust launches its first History Festival, a weekend of conferences and commemoration dedicated to the six queens of Henry VIII, with a memorial service and boat trip on the second day.
The Mary Rose Trust is launching its first-ever history festival, Six Queens, One King and His Ship, at the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard on Saturday 18 and Sunday 19 July. It's a full weekend of talks and commemoration built around the six wives of Henry VIII, and the timing isn't accidental: Sunday marks the 481st anniversary of the Mary Rose sinking.
Saturday is the heavy lifting. The Princess Royal Gallery hosts a day of lectures, debates and Q&A sessions, with the historian and broadcaster Prof. Suzannah Lipscomb chairing the whole thing. The programme is curated by Dr Estelle Paranque, and each of the six queens will be explored by a specialist historian: Charlotte Bolland takes Katherine of Aragon, Estelle Paranque herself covers Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth Norton looks at Jane Seymour, Owen Emmerson handles Anne of Cleves, Gareth Russell takes Katherine Howard and Linda Porter covers Catherine Parr. It's a proper deep dive into the Tudor court, with six different scholars each focusing on one of the women.
Sunday shifts the focus from the lecture theatre to the water. There's a commemoration service at Portsmouth Cathedral, and from there a boat trip out to the site where the Mary Rose went down in the Solent. If you're only around for one day, Saturday is the one for the history and the debate; Sunday is more about the anniversary itself.
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It's a paid event, with tickets in four tiers: bronze at £60, silver at £250, gold at £500 and platinum at £1,000. If you can't make it down to the Dockyard in person, there's a £60 streaming ticket that lets you watch the Saturday lectures live from wherever you are.
